Monthly Archives: March 2011

Since I live in Oregon I run in the rain A LOT. I don’t mind it too much. I think I have gotten used to it and I figure that if I’m not willing to run in the rain, then I won’t be running for about 9 months out of the year (I might be exaggerating, kind of).

I feel like biking in the rain is a little different. I think it was around 45 degrees when I left the house today and it was raining. And windy. This weather made for a cold bike ride. I think I can handle this kind of weather when I’m running better than when I’m riding my bike. I was so cold. But it was exactly what I needed today.

I wasn’t planning to go on a bike ride this weekend if it was going to rain. But my legs felt like they needed a hard workout, so I put on my running clothes (yeah, I need to buy some biking clothes) and set out for my ride.

I got about one minute from the house and my chain fell off as I was shifting. I slowed down to pull over and forgot to un-clip my shoes and ended up on the ground! This is fall #2 on my bike.

I walked back and Sonny helped me put the chain back on. Side note: I need to take a bike maintenance class.

Then I left the house again. This time I didn’t make it past the drive-way. I clipped my left foot into the pedal and had to wait for a car to go by before crossing the street and clipping the other foot in. I guess I was leaning a little too far to the left because I fell over! Fall #3! This fall was worse than the first one. I fell hard on my left knee. The clipping into the pedals thing is really making me feel uncoordinated.

I went back to the house again to check out my knee and decide if I should really go on this bike ride. My knee was pretty scraped up but I decided to go anyway!

Miles 4-6 of my ride were up a big hill. I passed a guy at the bottom of the hill before going up. I figured I was making a mistake since I knew he would pass me once we started up the hill. It’s crazy I know, but I held him off until just before we got to the top! I’m sure he was going easy though, and I was working really hard.

We rode down the backside of the hill together. It was fun talking to another bike rider. I told him that I just got my bike last weekend and he gave me some great tips:

#1 – Buy a fender. This is necessary for riding in Oregon. You should have seen my back when I got done with the ride. It was covered in dirt.

#2 – Get some covers for my shoes ( I can’t remember what he called them). My feet were soooo cold and these are supposed to help.

#3 – Wear glasses, especially when it’s raining. I didn’t wear mine today because I thought they would be annoying in the rain. But they keep water and dirt out of your eyes, so it’s a good idea to wear them.

#4 – Get bike lights. Even though it was light out, he had his rear light on.

#5 – You should mostly just use your rear brakes, and “flutter” the front one if necessary. I definitely didn’t know about this.

We rode together for 3 miles and then we went our separate ways. Lucky for me, I met up with Sonny about a mile later! I rode a 19 mile loop, and Sonny rode out and back on the second half of the loop. We rode together for the last 7 miles.

I’m so proud of Sonny for riding today! I didn’t think he was going to go since it was raining, but he ended up riding 15 miles. Even though my knee is scratched up from falling, and I was really cold and wet the entire ride, I’m so glad I went.

Injury Update

This week marked 4 weeks since the last time I went for a run. Wednesday to be exact. And it’s been 5 weeks since my 16 mile run when my body basically fell apart. When I first felt my foot pain, I never would have guessed I would still be injured a month later.

At this point I can walk with little or no pain at all. This is definitely an improvement. But running hurts. I ran for maybe 30 seconds a couple times on one of my walks this week and it hurt. I should probably go see a PT, but since my insurance doesn’t cover it I want to wait.

I have a new workout goal for the next 3 weeks. I did pretty well going to the pool 4-6 times a week the last 3 weeks but I’m getting tired of it. I’m going to decrease my pool workouts to 3 days a week and I’m planning on just swimming. Water jogging made sense at first, but this injury is lasting so long that I don’t feel like keeping up with it. I would rather ride my bike and hike. So that’s what I’m going to do instead. My goal is to do at least 1 hour of exercise 6 days a week. If I can fit more in, great. If not I’m okay with that too.

Monday – 1 hour swim + 30 minute walk

Tuesday – 1 hour water jog + 50 minute bike ride

Wednesday – 1 hour swim + 30 minute walkToday I completed 54 laps in the pool. That is 1.5 miles! I never thought I would be able to swim this far!

Thursday – 1 hour water jog + 30 minute walk

Friday – 1 hour walk

Saturday – Rest day

Sunday – 19 mile bike ride + 40 minute walk

Has anyone else fallen off their bike because they forgot to un-clip their shoes? I hope I’m not the only one!

When I got up this morning I felt like making muffins. I saw this recipe earlier in the week and luckily had all the ingredients.

After I started making the muffins I realized the vanilla was missing. I knew we had some but I couldn’t find it. Sonny has this habit of putting things back in weird places. Like peanut butter in the freezer. So he searched for the vanilla for a half hour or so and ended up finding it in a random cabinet behind a bunch of stuff.

I got back to my baking and finished up the muffins. They look really good, right? They even have a crumb topping.

But something is wrong with these muffins…

The blueberries are supposed to be INSIDE the muffins! Yeah, I totally forgot to put the blueberries in the batter. I didn’t realize I had forgotten that important step until I took them out of the oven.

Luckily the muffins are still very tasty. I ate the one above along with the frozen blueberries.

This recipe is great because there isn’t much sugar in them. There is a little bit of sugar in the crumb topping but that’s it, so these would be great breakfast muffins. With the blueberries of course.

Since I’m not running right now, I have more time to post about other things happening around here. Like developments on our little farm.

We got our chickens 2 weeks ago. And I’m happy to report they are all still alive and doing well! At first it didn’t seem like they were growing. But after looking back at the pictures from the day we got them, it’s obvious they are.

Two weeks ago…

Today…

They are a lot bigger and have more feathers! Two of the chickens were white, but one is turning brown (2nd from the right in the photo above).

Sonny built a little roost for them to hang out on.

Here is their set up. We put chicken wire over their box so they can’t get out and Max can’t get in. We have to keep the heat lamp on all the time to keep them warm.

Enough about the chickens… now for the garden.

We were so excited last year to have our first big garden. It was pretty successful last year and it will hopefully be even better this year!

Since last year was our first spring/summer living at this house we had a lot of work to do to get the garden ready. We built a greenhouse. Sonny built it and I painted it. Sonny made 8 large raised beds for our veggies. The soil here has a ton of clay in it so we have to plant most things in raised beds. The raised beds required a lot of dirt! We were hoping to plant corn last year but we ran out of time and didn’t get the area ready. Since a lot of the garden is now established we will have time this year to get an area ready for corn!

Our progress so far this year includes starting tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale and lettuce. We started all of these veggies last weekend.

We are planting cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes. We planted the same cherry tomatoes last year and they were really good. I’m hoping to can some of the regular tomatoes… something I have never done.

Our cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage did really well last year. Neither of us had ever grown these before and we were so happy they turned out well! I tried to start lettuce from seed last year and they didn’t sprout. I don’t think they will this year either so we will buy lettuce already started.

Our seeds are from Territorial Seed Company. The seeds are a little more expensive than other brands but they are local and specifically for this area so we like to use them.

The peppers and lettuce haven’t sprouted yet, but some of the seeds from all the other veggies we planted last weekend have.

This is our first attempt to grow kale. So far they are doing well!

Tomatoes…

The soil has to be at a certain temperature for the seeds to germinate. The temperature range for the tomatoes is around 70-90 degrees. All the other veggies are anywhere from 55-75 degrees. So we have been keeping the temperature at 70.

Last year we used a heating pad to warm up the soil but this year we had too many things started at the same time and the heating pad isn’t big enough. Sonny built this box out of old fence boards:

And put a string of Christmas lights in the box to keep the soil warm. Only 9 lights need to be on to keep the soil at 70 degrees. He is so creative!

Now that some of the seeds have sprouted we will keep a heat lamp on for part of the day.

We are planning to move the plants out to the green house today. There you have it… the beginning of our little farm. More on the bees later.